What do you mean "we"? My social circle would never allow it. But I suppose you're in the mud with the rest of the Morlocks. And besides, human interest videos = lame.

I won't assume. My message was primarily to Americans, since that's the relevant group here. If you're not American, this probably doesn't apply as much.

But if you are American, then yeah, you're a member of a society which perpetuates it. If you pay taxes, then whether or not you meant to do so or not, you paid paychecks of the human pond scum recorded in this video, because they're public educators who received some degree of federal funding. Doesn't feel good, does it?

But even more telling, and chilling, is the apathetic dismissal of the abuse of a 10-year-old autistic child by educators - abuse only allowed because the government requires school attendance, and the single father couldn't homeschool his child - as "lame." Where's your moral compass? And how do you not see that your apathy IS perpetuating the abuse, whether your "social circle would never allow it"?

Complacency is complicitly, bub. Apathy enables abuse. I suppose you've thrown your lot in with the oppressors and abusers.

You're right, I have. When the oppressed rise, I will hang from the tallest lamppost. Just don't hold your breath till then.

I've read a lot of history. In every culture, in any time, there have been weak individuals, and people exploiting them for power. This isn't specific to a certain culture or country, it takes different forms, but vicious people will always use the strength of their ruthlessness and any other advantage they may have to maneuver themselves into positions where they can exploit the weak. For money, for power, just for kicks, whatever. I'm not sure what kind of sheltered lives people have where they get surprised by videos like these. This shit goes on constantly, everywhere, and it's hidden, because the weak don't have voices, and if they do, the powerful can suppress them. Teachers bullying kids is far more common than people think.

That's why we need to do what this guy did. Don't turn your eyes away when someone weak is suffering. If you suspect something's wrong, look into it. If you find evidence, expose the heaps of filthy shit that take advantage of the weak and use whatever medium you have at your disposal to fight them.

PE be a trollin hard.

Blame the teachers' unions (as the father in the video does, in part). Here in the southern half of the same state as PE's story, this sicko wasn't fired, either:

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-students-bound-gagged-photos,0,2613868.story?page=1

He was allowed to resign after he was finally arrested, by the rules of the union contract - guaranteeing that he won't lose his generous lifetime pension. Hopefully he'll have no opportunity to spend it outside of the prison commissary. School officials even 'protected their own' for years by dissuading parents of victims from going to the police. It's a truly sick system that would allow things like this to go on for years... and then circle the wagons when the evil deeds are publicized.

I don't mean to act like it's a big surprise, or unique to the American condition. I'm just blown away that a culture which literally founds itself, in part, on its own "exceptionalism" can be so morally bankrupt and not care about this kind of abuse or actively perpetuate it. To say "I thought we were better than that" would be a lie - I didn't - but I guess I'm amazed at the sheer magnitude of cognitive dissonance I see in this society. I know I wanted to think we were better than that.

Definitely not trolling.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57347613/school-accused-of-putting-autistic-boy-in-bag/

One's a point, two's a trend, three's a pattern.

oh definitely ;P

damn this guy sure is lovin himself makin this little viddy

bout halfway thru now, could u post one of those popcorn gifs here please?

How do you guys just not care? I don't get it. I'm a pretty laid back guy in general, so it's not like I struggle with being able to get away from things. But how can you just treat this abhorrent pattern with such contemptuous apathy?

The picture frame was crooked.


Just like those bitch ass teachers.

Clearly this pattern of abuse began when he named his son Akian.

http://jejeli.com/floorenzo.com/wp-includes/js/stephen-colbert-eating-popcorn-gif-i3.gif

This shit is on the front page of msn.com right now. I haven't checked reddit, but I would assume its getting close to the front page there as well.

^^And I don't mean "Shit" in a bad way.

<humor>
I don't know about you guys, but if I were a professor and some punk ass kid came into my office asking for extra credit or some stupid crap like that, I'd let him have his say, then I'd get up from my desk, extolling the virtues of this one particular whiskey I have on a shelf, telling him how old it is, how few bottles exist, how valuable it is. I'd pour a shot, then I'd say, "this is worth more than you'll ever amount to in your entire life." Then I'd drink it.
</humor>

Is this the kind of bullying you guys are talking about?

Why are you reenacting the scene from Lost?^

Still blown away by the complete apathy toward an autistic child being abused at school.

The internet = apathy.

The internet is a place where people tell you that their friends and family have more moral worth than strangers, and waaay more than foreigners.

Welcome to hell.

Don't worry - I care. I don't know if it comes off but I do. Education in this country is fubar.

Eh, I figure webDiplomacy is a little better than the internet at large. I was at least expecting to hear from the regulars who get involved in serious discussion. Srs threads don't usually get trolled to hell

I worked for over two years at a special needs school with all self contained classrooms, privately owned, but partially funded by the government. Some of the more extreme classrooms are in schools like this, where students with autism are common. The teachers do not have tenure, and aides didn't have unions until the last two months before I left. Both get very little pay for the jobs they are asked to do.

I'm starting to wonder if the kind of abuse described in the video is why there were always at least one higher functioning student in a classroom of lower functioning students. You should understand that this kind of job is not an easy job, because verbal and physical abuse is coming from the students more often than not for completely unknown reasons, and in some cases the adults. I've heard of many times where staff at the schools or group homes have abused their jobs and then lost them rightfully so. Some may never get caught just because the clients (children or adults with special needs) couldn't always defend themselves effectively. It is important to keep in mind that in most cases the staff are looking out for the best interests of the clients. Unfortunately I can't really see any real oversight legislation that could prevent this short of a camera in every room.

I'm posting this video and saying this not to defend the teachers or aides in any way, but because I believe it is important to understand as much about something so complex, that so few people take the time to understand. Every staff was required to watch a video about this institution in our 2 weeks of training. Back to a time when Fox had some legitimacy, which isn't really that long ago. This was not the only institution of its kind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA7sX_FYSCY

I hear stories all the time about teachers in public schools also that get fired for their inappropriate behavior. One of the things that really gets to me are the cases of teachers in NYC that are reviewed by independent arbiters and allowed to keep their pay. However the school administrators don't trust them so they give them desk jobs where they do nothing all day and continue to get the same salary, sometimes higher than $100,000.

My wife spent years working in a nursing home as a nurse's aid with elderly people with dementia and Alzheimer's and the like: elderly people very similar to the special needs of these children. She came home with bruises from canes where a dementia patient thought she was stealing something because she went into the bathroom to get some water for the patient or went to do something the patient just asked her to do. My wife is no perfect saint, btu she not only "put up with" the abusive actions that could result from dementia, but showed them compassion and care all the more when they got confused and scared. If she can do it, why can't these fucking morons with college degrees do it? Jesus Christ, some people need to be taken out back and stripped down to their underwear, and beaten with a switch until their are so black and blue they can't sit or lay down for a month.

"Blame the teachers' unions (as the father in the video does, in part). Here in the southern half of the same state as PE's story, this sicko wasn't fired, either:"

Yes, because without teachers unions, your wonderful schools would even have special needs classes at all, let alone people trained in special education. Way to exploit a tragedy to land your usual Ron Paulie cheapshot. As usual, people simply use this to attack all educators, even though it takes the patience of Job to deal with the aftereffects of their terrible parenting.

I work with autistic kids. They are amazing. But it fucking infuriates me that libertarians and their ilk, the same people who want to shut down the facility I work in with their budget cuts, are jumping up and down about teachers unions as if they're the problem. No, you're the problem. You're the reason why teacher morale is low. Why teachers are blamed for every kid's problems, for failed parenting. You're the reason why schools don't have the money to invest in special needs. You're the reason why schools have to cut back on basic services. The people fighting all of this are teachers unions. You're the enemy of autistic children, not them.

I'm going to have to disagree with you, Putin. They're not attacking all educators; they're specifically attacking the teacher's union that kept these disgusting animals - the "educators" that abused this child - from receiving serious punishment for their actions. The unions are acting like the Catholic Church, using their influence to avoid having the significant number of bad apples that abuse students face firings and dismissals. They get the disgusting filth reassigned to different areas where they can abuse again. This does happen.

Unions in general aren't the problem, but I don't think there's any doubt the teacher's union overstepped in protecting its own here.

OK, so I just had to hit ESC to see the Putin diatribe. Priceless. He is actually defending these fuckers. Makes one wonder if he watched the video, an dif he did, just want kind of teacher he is. Oh, and no surprise, he actually made this into a political thing. Boy I can't wait until Obama loses this fall to see how far Putin plummets off the deep end. He might even give himself a fucking stroke.

"I'm going to have to disagree with you, Putin. They're not attacking all educators"

Are you actually responding to me? Because that wasn't my point at all. I'm not defending these educators, I'm responding to the use of this tragedy and abuse to attack all teachers unions, when libertarians are the ones who want to cut the rug out from underneath the few resources special needs kids have.

Mitt Romney's budget completely annihilates federal funding for special needs kids. And the right wants to attack the very people who spend their time fighting these cuts.

But... no. The only thing stated here that had anything to do with the education system itself was that the teacher's union really fucked up on this one. The TU did just about everything it could to spare these monsters from justice. I really don't think that's arguable.

Beyond that, nothing. No mention of whether we should cut spending for these kids or not, no mention of what the good "libertarian" thing to do is, etc. This was meant to be nonpartisan...

As for the 'unions are acting like the Catholic church' - that's ridiculous. Just because every teacher isn't fired as soon as a parent wants them to be fired, they're the Catholic Church? Because there are rules for review? Imagine what our education system would look like if every teacher was fired as soon as a parent called for his or her head. We'd have no teachers. There is no evidence of a catholic church style reassignment process to avoid getting rid of abusive teachers here. But as usual people want to blame everything on unions.

The Catholic Church has "rules for review" as well, you know. Neither set is more valid than the other - you either say "They're abusing children, which is against the law," and do something about it straight away with both, or you say "We have a process, we're going to follow it" and be consistent there. But trying to act like the RCC and the TU are somehow on different moral planes here when they both perpetrated the same abominable act of covering up abuse is silly. And yes, almost everyone involved was just transferred to another district - the only one who wasn't was the main perpetrator, the transfer of whom the union couldn't possibly get away with doing.

"The only thing stated here that had anything to do with the education system itself was that the teacher's union really fucked up on this one."

Tolstoy's comments weren't specific to this union, it was a general condemnation of all teachers unions. It'd be really nice if we could have a single thread without having to rehash what people already said. And no the evidence isn't as clear cut as you claim. Cherry Hill is a well regarded school district. They stated the people in the video no longer work for the district after receiving a copy of the recording.

There were two people involved, what on earth are you talking about? Where was Jodi Rosenfeld transferred to? Teachers unions can't simply transfer people to other districts.

I knew I could count on Putin to defend Mr. Semen Cookies and the union goons who stood up for him and made sure he had fresh victims for twenty years.

All hail the cult of organized labor, and praise be to the child sacrifices we offer up to it!

Quickly weighing in:

It is partly the fault of teacher's unions, partly the fault of spending-cut-happy "libertarians" as Putin called them.

The cutters are dumbasses because our schools are underfunded, period. You cut the schools, you are the highest order of fool.

The teacher's unions suck because they don't allow us to create a truly world class set of teachers because shitty ones are allowed to stay, and valuable resources are sucked up by them.

It's a dual problem and it's all the more sad because schools should ideally be outside of this kind of political gamesmanship.

When you say the video angers you, it makes it sound like you disagree with itf rather than whileheartily supporting the anger is espouses.

When you put people in a position of power they will abuse it. Abu grave(sp?) prison abuses are a great examples. People do not just act 'evil' without cause, if a lion kills a zebra that is an act of nature, while if a lion kills a zebra in a zoo it is an act of the zookeeper's choice to house them in the same pen.

In this case, the teacher's union have a responcibility to their members, to protect them from loss of income and reputation when attacked, whether the attack is just or unjust is not for the union to decide, that should be resolved by the courts.

So while the system which puts teachers in a position where they abuse children is deplorable and needs reform, the system which protects employees from attack by members if the public is not.

"The teacher's unions suck because they don't allow us to create a truly world class set of teachers because shitty ones are allowed to stay, and valuable resources are sucked up by them."

It would be possible to have performance rules to cut underperforming teachers from their position, just like any contract, if you are not doing your job you lose it.

This MUST already be happening, it is just a question of having such low standards because there are not enough teachers. You could talk about improving the standard of teachers, but you'd have to replace everyone you fired... It's not just Unions which make this a hard task.

@ora - The union has a responsibility to investigate and not just whitewash over the problem teacher. They're no different in their responsibilities than any other organization whose members serve to protect those who can't protect themselves (police union anyone? ora? putin?). Seriously, do you not think the police union should be involved into police abuse allegations - something putin conveniently forgets is a union based service when he rails against the police and their "racist" serving of our upper class masters.

No ora, the teacher doesn't have an individual contract. The union does. And the union threatens to put the entire district on strike if you fire one underperforming teacher. Schools are caught in the middle.of the teacher's union and "No child left behind" for just that reason.

@Draug, that is a stupid contract system...

I don't think it works like that in Ireland, where - sure a Union could threaten to go on strike, if say pay or conditions were not being up to standard. But an individual could be fired for not doing their jobs.

If someone in a teacher union doesn't show up to work for ten weeks, does the school get to fire them?

'The union has a responsibility to investigate and not just whitewash over the problem teacher. ' - why does this responsibility fall on the Union and not the school if this is a civil matter, or police if it is criminal?

Obviously for police unions you expect most police forces to have separate internal affairs divisions...

Because the contract gives the union enough power to say "no you can't fire them". With great power comes great responsibility and the unions in America have tremendous power. Therefore the unions need to conduct an investigation or at least be involved in it and be willing to take action for underpeeforming or misbehavior members of their private little club. If they can dictatevwho a company (schoolbdistrict or police force) can fire then they have to take responsibility for that members actions when remember continues to be a problem and they don't do that.

Lots of typos but you get the idea. I hate "soft keyboards" on phones.

Yeah until the teacher called him a bastard I was like, "dude quit crying." Now not so much.

[turns volume up]

PE B A TROLLIN HARD

LOL

Were you talking about the dad or the kid on your "dude, quit crying"? The dad I hope.

My wife watched and listened to that last night and was in shock at how they behaved. She said any one of her coworkers would have been instantly fired had they been caught acting like that in front of or to the residents at her former employer. But then nurse's aids don't have aunion so the nursing homes can actually take steps to eliminate the problem employees and look to the patient care at the better ones, like where she worked.

Unfortunately, not all nursing homes are the better ones. Too many of them, being privately owned for profit organizations, are mor eintereste din the money and are worse than the schools with their hands tied by the unions.

The dad, of course, Draug.

Sorry, should have put the smiley after that, YJ.

And to clarify further, I meant *I* should have put the smiley. I knew what you were talking about, but batshit crazy Draug was trying to lighten the load, so to speak, before dumping more fuel on the trash heap and tossing on a match.

I was trying to lighten the load before lighting the load?

So, based on mempory, here is what I had problems with and one where the dad overreacted (although it could have been handled better).

Starts with the discussions... We didn't hear all of them on that vid, but I understand there was more and it directly involved him and his son. OK, maybe. Definitely unprofessional talking about being drunk and all.

Moves onto the "Can I see daddy after mommy." - The aid or teacher could have said "Sure honey. Of course you can." - Would have diffused the situtation and not caused the issues scaring the poor kid did even if it was just a thoughtless action.

"You're a bastard" = Take that person out and beat them with a leather belt till they cbleed. Plain and simple. No fucking excuse for that.

"Can I see?", "No you can't see" and then chuckles. - totally out of context. He didn't actually ask if he could see daddy after mommy again, so dad overreacted there. We don't have video inside the classroom so for all we know the teacher and aids were looking at something not for kids eyes when he asked that. Could they have handled it better? Yes, but dad took it out of context and added in his own assumption of what his son was asking. And the chuckles were from far enough away we don't have a solid frame of reference for interpretation and analysis.

All that said, "You're a bastard." is enough alone to make me want to find that teacher or aid some night and beat the ever living fuck out of her.